Quicksand
by SongsofPsyche1945
Summary: Things in Mirkwood suddenly go terribly, terribly wrong for Bilbo and the dwarves.


This is not the Greenwood of old, the very air of the forest is heavy with illusion that will seek to enter your mind and lead you astray.

The demons of the forest shimmered and ghosted about, one second absent, the next right there again but for now it seemed like they had gone; retreated into the dark, their lament sunk away.

Bilbo was the fortunate one, he managed to see the shimmer in the ground before the others and by the time he called out, it was too late.

The forest was upon them with lighting speed.

Ori slid first, flat on his back in the sink quickly into sand, He was kicking like a hog with its throat cut and every kick his body sank deeper. As his face disappeared beneath the mud he glimpsed Bilbo, standing at the edge of the slope staring down at him. Then the mire covered his face and blotted him out.

The tide of sand climbed the slope relentlessly catching up with the escapees. Feeble cries for assistance ended with chinking silence as mouths were filled with earth. Thorin wasn't to be let free; he struggled, cursing and pressing the thrashing body of Bombur deeper into the sand in his frantic attempts to step out of the gully.

There were universal howls now, as panicking dwarves groped and grasped at each other for support, desperately trying to keep their heads afloat in the sea of earth.

Dwalin was buried up to his waist. A few yards behind him Dori was screaming blue murder as the forest ate him up. Further still from him he could see a face peering out from the seething ground like a living mask thrown on the earth. There was an arm close by, still waving as it sank.

Bilbo took one step backwards as the mud slightly overran the lip of the gully, but it didn't reach his feet. Nor, curiously did it dissipate itself as water wave might have done.

Like concrete, it hardened, fixing its living trophies like flies in amber. From the lips of every face that still took air came a fresh cry of terror as they felt the forest floor stiffen around their struggling limbs.

Dwalin saw Thorin, buried to chest level. Tears of frustration and anguish were pouring down his cheeks; he was sobbing like a little girl. He scarcely thought of himself. Of the east, of the Quest, of the Lonely Mountain he though not at all.

The dwarves who's faces were buried but whose limbs, or parts of bodies still broke surface were dead of asphyxiation by now. Only Thorin Oakenshield, Dwalin and two other dwarves survived. One was locked in the earth up to his chin, Thorin was buried so that chest sat on the ground, his arms were free to beat uselessly at the ground that held him fast. Dwalin himself was held from his hips down, and most horribly, one pathetic victim was seen only by his nose and mouth. His head tipped back into the ground, blinded by rock. Still he breathed. Still he screamed.

Thorin was scrabbling at the ground with torn nails, but this was not loose earth. It was unmovable.

"Get help" he demanded of Bilbo, hands bleeding

The two of them stared at each other.

"Dear Mahal!" screamed The Mouth.

The Head was silent; by his glazed look it was apparent that he had lost his mind.

"Please help us…" pleaded Dwalin's torso, "Fetch help"

Bilbo nodded.

"Go!" demanded Thorin, "Go…"

Numbly, Bilbo obeyed. Already there was a glimmer of dawn in the east. Above them Bilbo heard the demons and other creatures stirring, soon they would be upon this unfortunate little group. Who could he find in this desolate forest? Elves? Gandalf? He would have to summon help from perhaps fifty miles of distance. Even assuming he found his way back. Even assuming he didn't collapse exhausted to the forest and die.

It would be noon before he could fetch help to the Chest, the Torso, to the Head and to the Mouth. By that time the wilderness would have had the best of them. The forest would have boiled their brain-pans dry, spiders would have nested in their hairs, the buzzards would have hooked our their helpless eyes.

He glanced round one more at their trivial forms, dwarfed by the bloody sweep of the dawn sky. Little dots and commas of human pain on a blank sheet of sand; he didn't care to think of the pen that wrote them there. That was for tomorrow.

After a while, he began to run.

888

Just a quick, slightly dark one shot I thought up. I hope you liked it! Please review!


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